Amway ups tempo in NE

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Yoginder Singh speaks at the event in Guwahati on Thursday. Picture by UB Photos

Guwahati, March 20: Direct selling FMCG major Amway is scaling up its corporate social responsibility activities in the Northeast with a focus on meeting the health and education needs of visually impaired and underprivileged children.

“Our CSR arm, Amway Opportunity Foundation (AOF), has scaled up its activities in the Northeast in the past five years under two projects — National Project for the Blind and Project Sunrise. The latter is for underprivileged children,” Yoginder Singh, senior vice-president (legal and corporate affairs), Amway India, told The Telegraph on the sidelines of a CSR roundtable, organised by Ficci, here today.

The Union corporate affairs ministry has mandated that under the Companies Act, 2013, all profitable companies with sizeable businesses will annually have to spend at least 2 per cent of three years’ average profit on CSR.

Amway earmarks an annual budget of Rs 2 crore for CSR activities across the four regions of India.

“We have spent over Rs 20 lakh in the past year on CSR activities in the Northeast itself, with the latest investment being on a handloom weaving centre for orphan children at TNT Orphanage in Aizawl that opened on Tuesday. A vocation centre at Guwahati Blind School, a girls’ home in Shillong and a facility for orphans and destitute in Kohima was also set up recently,” he said.

Amway’s CSR initiatives in the region date back to 2009.

“Five years ago, AOF tied up with Guwahati Blind School to help students there develop educational performance and fulfil their healthcare needs. We supplied Braille textbooks for students from Class V to X, set up a computer centre in 2011 and thereafter a music academy,” Singh said.

“The handicrafts centre at the blind school will economically empower as many as 75 students by enhancing their income-generating schools. Of late, AOF has also appointed an English language teacher at the school,” he said.

Amway has 10 branch offices in the Northeast.

“Our CSR activities are need-based and carried out by the respective offices. Employees and distributors form local implementation committees which are entrusted to identify, screen, select and partner with NGOs to support the health and education needs of the less privileged children,” Singh said.